Course for Young Doctors

Young Doctors Course: Easter Course: Lecture IV

Schmidt Number: S-5703

On-line since: 10th September, 2008

Lecture IV

Dornach, April 24, 1924

I thought that today we would develop, in
another direction, things that were mentioned yesterday.
Perhaps this will help to give the questions you have put,
and of which Dr. Wegman has told me, a right form.

Through your
general destiny as human beings you are finding your way into
the medical profession, into the vocation of healing. In this
sphere you find a certain current to which, with full
justification, you feel a kind of inner opposition. There are
often objective reasons for this and you will understand what
they are when you realize more and more that modern medicine
is really like a foreign body in much of what constitutes
European, Western civilization. We see for the first time how
things really are when we realize that the reason why our
natural science — and also a great deal else in modern
spiritual life — has assumed its present form, is that
people of importance in medicine and science within our
culture were reincarnations of individualities from the
Arabian-Mohammedan culture. These matters have recently been
much spoken of at the Goetheanum. They are, indeed, connected
with what is now happening in the Anthroposophical movement,
but for the physicians, too, they are very important. I have
said on various occasions that we must turn our attention to
that center of spiritual culture which was at its prime when,
in Europe, a kind of primitive spiritual life was prevailing
under Charlemagne. Over in Asia there was flourishing the
spiritual culture centers around Harun al Raschid
(766–809). Many of the wise men of those days —
including many physicians — were at his court. It was a
time, as you will notice, when Christianity had already been
working for some centuries.

Christianity
itself appears in the world as something that can only be
understood slowly and by degrees and, for an external, though
not for an inner point of view, it is very strange that the
deeper sides of Christianity have, in reality, not been
fathomed at all by human beings. Christianity came into the
world as an objective fact and the receptive faculties of men
were not strong enough to develop the real essence of it in
all directions. The objective consequences, therefore, are
that Christianity is everywhere living in the
sub-consciousness but that for three or four centuries it has
been completely ruined by man. Human beings ruined
Christianity through their intellect. As well as this there
are the terribly dilettante institutions that have been set
up in recent times at universities. Originally there were
four traditional faculties, namely: philosophy, theology,
jurisprudence, and medicine. The rest that have been added
have been based on utter unenlightenment and
misunderstanding. Faculties for such subjects as political
science, national economy and the like, originated from
thoughts which no longer knew anything at all of the
essentials.

What has not
been understood at all is that, to begin with, four men were
sent out by Christ to proclaim Christianity: Matthew, the
theologian; Mark, the jurist; Luke, the physician; and John,
the philosopher. This fact, which has very deep roots in the
spiritual life (things at present are only in germ and have
yet to blossom and bear fruit), is also connected with the
realization that the texts of the four Gospels cannot
completely tally because the one is written from the
standpoint of the theologian, the other from the standpoint
of the philosopher, a third from the standpoint of the
jurist, and a fourth from the standpoint of the physician.
This must be thoroughly understood. And because it has not
been understood, because the Luke Gospel has not yet been
accepted as a guide for the inner will-to-healing, there is
no truly Christian will-to-healing in modern thought. There
is, instead, the attitude that has crept into spiritual
culture through Arabism which has gripped Christianity like a
pair of forceps. It is very interesting that Christianity,
which originated in Asia, came across to Europe and spread
abroad in Europe.

But now just
think of the Court of Harun al Raschid, where ancient
medicine flourished. The Old Mystery Wisdom, still preserved
in tradition, was living in the existing knowledge concerning
the being of man. There were two men at that court: Harun al
Raschid himself, the organizer of the great academy of
spiritual life which grew and developed under his influence;
and another, who in earlier times had been an initiate. In
the days of Harun al Raschid the initiation did not come to
the surface. Harun al Raschid

reincarnated as Lord Bacon of Verulam
(1561–1626) and with his kind of thinking which was
thoroughly steeped in Arabism, he renewed the
natural-scientific thinking, from the West. Such was the path
he took in his life between death and rebirth. If you would
study Lord Bacon you would find how greatly medicine was
influenced thereby. Indeed you would be amazed. The other
man, the initiate, was reborn in the soul of Amos Comenius
(1592–1670). Comenius' life was one of aspiration
towards the spirit, but he turned everything into
intellectual conceptions.

Again,
another personality in Arabism — he did not live at
exactly the same time as Harun al Raschid, but he played a
part in the battle of Zeres de la Frontera — was reborn
as Charles Darwin (1809–1882). And so the influences
that are working in natural science and especially in
medicine, are re-embodiments of ancient conceptions from
which Christianity was excluded. Such conceptions did not
constitute an evolution of Christianity, but Christianity was
excluded as Arabism embraced Europe in its fold. Medicine
itself was most of all affected in this sense. The impulse
which the Luke Gospel can give to medicine has still to be
absorbed. To this end you must take with the very greatest
earnestness what I said yesterday about understanding the
being of man from out of the cosmos and then you will find
your true bearings in the tasks which your karma sets you
today.

Let us try to
picture medicine as it was at the Court of Harun al Raschid.
On the one side it contained the heritage of the Hippocratic
mode of thinking. Those who have read the first course of
lectures to physicians given by me here will perhaps remember
that I referred to Hippocrates as being the last man who
healed on the basis of the medical wisdom of the Ancient
Mysteries. Over in Asia, during the transition to Hippocratic
medicine, there came, from northeastern Asia, a strong
influence from Mongolian methods of healing. Very much was
introduced against which not only European thought but the
inner nature of the human being himself could not help
rebelling. The inner nature of man was not in harmony with
the Mongolian-Tartar influence which thus entered into
medical thinking. The reason can be found if we can
understand the human being from a fundamental, cosmic point
of view.

In the book
Occult Science, evolution is described through the
Saturn, Sun, Moon phases, followed by the phase of Earth
evolution proper. The human being has passed through all
these stages of evolution and from what has been said in
these lectures you will have learned that there is, firstly,
the stream of heredity which works in the model, and
secondly, the stream of the individuality which comes from
earlier earthly lives. What works in heredity leads back to
earlier times but is an Ahrimanic remnant, has dried up. This
is what is contained in heredity and it is really with this
factor alone that modern orthodox medicine is working. No
heed is paid to the other stream that is elaborated in the
second period of human life between the change of teeth and
puberty — the period which even statistics show to be
the most healthy because during it the human being is least
prone to fall ill. Modern medicine does not really desire to
be connected with health; it prefers to burrow about in
disease. This expresses the condition of things very
radically but so it is, in reality. To have a real connection
with health this understanding of the whole cosmos in man
must be brought to the point where the cosmos is actually
perceived in the human being. For this we need a knowledge of
the data which can enable us to have a picture of the cosmic
evolution of man. The Old Saturn evolution, Old Sun
evolution, Old Moon evolution — all are contained
within the human being. And not until these three stages
which lead up to the stage of Earth evolution are grasped is
it possible to understand what we really have before us in
the earthly human being. There are so many sciences today
— but there is no real science concerning Saturn, Sun,
Moon, because in our general experience of nature we can no
longer remember what was contained in the instinctive, primal
wisdom. We cannot even approach the wisdom that was still so
alive in Hippocrates, because it has become mere phraseology.
It must again be filled with life.

Significant
words sound over to us from ancient times, but, generally
speaking, no heed is paid to them, least of all is any heed
paid to the wonderful indications they contain for medicine.
There is a sentence in the Bible to the effect that the
divine powers of the world regulated life on the basis of
measure, number, and weight. But is there anyone today who
regards such words as being anything more than a phrase
suggesting the existence of an ancient, divine architect who
worked according to the principles of measure, number and
weight? A physician, however, has to find measure, number,
and weight actually within the human being.

If we
consider Saturn — and the Saturn evolution is contained
in the human being — we naturally do not find this
Saturn evolution as such in the human being as he actually is
today, because all the evolutionary stages are synthetically
united in him; they are present, but in such a way that the
single stages by themselves disappear in the union, in the
harmony. Illness, however, calls forth the one or the other
phenomenon in its own particular form. And now, what I have
described in Occult Science must really be grasped, not with
the intellect alone, but in the way that makes us feel how
during the Saturn evolution a cosmic warmth was
all-pervading. Whenever we study the Saturn evolution we are
led back to the element of warmth. Saturn is working in the
human being and all that is described about the Saturn
evolution — it is all working in the human being, but
it does not come to light in earthly man when these
evolutionary stages are intermingled within his being. It
does, however, work when a human being is ill. A separation
then takes place of what is otherwise united into a harmony.
The Saturn element works on its own — in fever. We
shall have a science of fever for the first time when we make
this science of fever cosmic, when we can understand how Old
Saturn is working in the human being; we must understand how,
in the phenomenon of fever, the cosmos is working in by way
of the Saturn forces which, spiritually speaking, have been
sucked in by the earth. Realizing that the Saturn forces are
distributed over the earth's surface, and appear in their
strongest form in the lead forces, we shall get an inner
understanding of fever. The divine world order regulates the
world according to measure, and in the measure of the fever
there is an expression of the measure prevailing in the world
order. We must see the principle of measure in the phenomena
of fever. Therefore, we must let these words work strongly in
us:

Feel in the fever's
measure
The Spirit-Gift of Saturn.

Fühle in des Fiebers Maß
Des Saturns Geistesgabe.

It is in very
truth the spirit of the human being that makes its appearance
in the fever which, in other circumstances, is submerged in
the other elements. In fever, the spirit of man asserts
itself, but here it is isolated. The most ancient constituent
part of the being of man appears, in fever, at the surface of
existence.

After the
Saturn evolution came the Sun evolution, during which the
element of warmth condensed to air on the one side, but, on
the other, was rarefied to light. Light and air intermingle,
they belong together. When we breathe we take in the rhythm
of the air. We also take in the light, and light, in the
occult sense, is not merely that which works in the eye.
Light is a general expression for what works through the sun.
The eye is merely the most characteristic representative of
what works through the sun. In the Middle Ages, what works in
the light was known as spiritual tincture. The Sun evolution
is also within the human being of today and we feel it at
once, not as something that is now working on the earth but
as the after-working of the Old Sun, when with true feeling
we lay our fingers on the pulse of a human being. The number
of the pulse beats is an expression of the Old Sun evolution
within us. Therefore as the second couplet, we have:

Feel in the pulse's
number
The Soul-power of Sun.

Fühle in des Pulses Zahl
Der Sonne Seelenkraft.

Whether we
act or do not act like this, my dear friends, is by no means
a matter of indifference. Such a thing can be taken
seriously, or not seriously. It makes a tremendous difference
if you are really mindful of this when you proceed to read
the temperature on the thermometer, if, having acquired the
faculty by inner practice you think of the picture presented
by evolution in the Saturn period. There, because everything
lives in the flow of warmth, the whole world appears to you
like a spirit gift in which, by way of warmth, love streams
into every single thing; and if in this mood of devotion you
realize that streaming love exists in the world through
Saturn's warmth, if in this mood of reverent gratitude to the
love and warmth-bestowing world creative power you recognize
what is happening as you test the temperature, then you will
have an intuition about what you ought to do.

Similarly we
ought not to feel the pulse in the slipshod, mechanical way
in which this is often done, but we should actually be able
to steep ourselves in the cosmic rhythm that goes out from
the sun. In feeling the pulse we should be able also to feel
how the human being lives within all that spreads out light,
air, and brightness, irradiating the world. Then again our
whole being is poured into the will-to-heal. The will-to-heal
cannot be acquired by inner commandment but only when the
soul's attitude to the world is one of true devotion.

Then you can
pass on to examine the other symptoms. You try to discover
how far the substances that are working in the human being
are not taking on the human form but are adhering to their
own form. To what, for example, is diabetes due? In the
healthy human being, the sugar is humanized; it does not work
through its own force as sugar. The diabetic condition is due
to the fact that in his very atoms the human being is too
weak to permeate the sugar through and through. In his ego
organization he is following the sugar forces — forces
which belong to the world outside man. Think of all the
forces that express themselves in diabetes, in the residues
of the urine, which deposit themselves in the body in
migraine and other conditions. Think of all the substances
that appear in the body, following their own laws and not the
laws of man's nature, and two questions will occur to
you.

First of all,
how is it possible that there can arise in man a tendency to
let substance unfold its own forces within his organism? If
this tendency had never been present, the Moon evolution
would never have been able to intervene. The moon forces
intervene when the substances within the human organism want
to go their own way. When this happens the moon forces seize
hold of the forces of the substances and, as moon forces,
produce the form of man. The human form is permeated with the
moon forces. Saturn is the giver of warmth, sun of rhythm,
moon of form.

Thus it is,
in the whole human being. Think of something which I always
emphasize. The brain in us has not really its own weight. If
we remove the brain we find that its weight is about 1,500
grams, but when it is in the body it weighs only
approximately twenty grams, because, according to the
principle of Archimedes, every body in water loses as much of
its weight as the weight of the volume of water displaced.
The brain in the cerebral fluid, displaces some of this
fluid, acquires buoyancy, and presses down on its base with a
weight of only approximately twenty grams. So it is with
everything else. The point is that there must be, in the
cosmos, forces which up to the necessary degree take away
from the human being some of the weight of the substances
within him. The weight must be regulated and the third
couplet has to do with the weight of substance and its
regulation by the cosmos. If you are investigating the
workings of metabolism, you are, in reality, investigating
whether some substance is manifesting under the influence of
its own weight or whether the weight is regulated by the
cosmos. This is the regulation by the divine spiritual world
according to weight. And the third couplet is:

Feel in the weight of substance
The forming powers of Moon.

Fühle in des Stoffs Gewicht
Des Mondes Formenmacht.

Again with
this attitude we should be able to feel, when we are speaking
about rheumatism, gout, constipation, diabetes, migraine,
about all conditions that are somehow connected with deposits
which express the inherent weight of the substances, we
should feel that something is entering into our experience
that can be expressed in the words: Earthly gravity has laid
hold of the human being. Much is contained in such words. You
should permeate your investigations with such feelings.

Just think
how abstractly, how brutally, how heedlessly investigations
are made into these things today and you will realize what is
really lacking and has been killed, in spite of the fact that
Arabism did conserve much of the wisdom, conscientiousness
and skill of ancient times. It has been killed because Moon,
Sun and Saturn—this Trinity which was then disguised as
Father, Son and Spirit — disappeared and was repudiated
by Arabian thought in Mohammedanism with the words:
“Away with this Trinity. Mohammed proclaims only one
God!” (Mohammed himself did not say this, but the Angel
who inspired him, did. He was not one of the best Angels
although he was a very wise one.) And so we see that all
differentiations in the world are allowed to disappear;
things which ought to be known are darkened and our medicine
has become an Arabian-Mohammedan medicine. European humanity
was incapable of discovering the truth. Today these things
must be known or mankind will go to pieces.

Feel in the fever's
measure
The Spirit-gift of Saturn.
Feel in the pulse's number
The Soul-powers of Sun;
Feel in the weight of substance
The forming power of Moon;
Then wilt thou see in thy healing will
Earthly man's healing need.

If these
things are grasped with real feeling, we shall realize how in
the course of life on earth the individuality who comes from
previous earthly lives takes hold of the model which proceeds
from the stream of heredity. I have already told you of the
struggle that takes place between what is shaped according to
the model as the second human body in contrast to the first
body that is really a model. If we know that we have in front
of us a being who is really working himself to the surface,
we also realize that what comes from earlier incarnations is
working at this being. Those who permeate these things with
their forces of heart and soul have the best possible
opportunity to perceive or at least to get an inkling of what
is coming over from earlier incarnations.

What is the
cause of the condition that appears as illness? The healthy
human being has his head organization, whose structure, even
externally, is separated from the rest of the organization.
The head is a bony structure in which the brain is enclosed.
A continuation of the head is also contained in the bones.
The head is self-contained and the rest of the human being is
joined to it. But in the finer organization of man there is
something that demarcates these two parts of his being. It is
not so very easy to prove this fact by external anatomy and
physiology, but there is a tremendous amount to be learned by
studying the transformation of the foodstuffs, for instance,
the fact that these foodstuffs do not, in their own form,
pass over into the head organization, nor even into the
nerves. There is a sharp boundary line which must not be
crossed. What is it that must not cross this boundary?

Now from the
beginning of earthly life there is working, most strongly of
all in the head organization, the forces from earlier earthly
lives which have been preserved through the period between
birth and death. The forces of the child's individuality
proceed from the head. But they must not pass down unsifted
into the rest of the organism. A sieve must be there, an
intermediate stratum. It is not externally visible but it
exists in the organization. Nothing passes downwards
unsifted. The lung as an organ or the liver as an organ must
not be seized hold of directly by the forces that come from
earlier incarnations. They cannot bear this. The human being
is in a terrible condition when one is obliged to realize
that the forces from earlier incarnations are getting to his
liver without having passed through this sieve. In the period
between death and a new birth the human individuality
transforms into the new head organization the forces that
were contained in lung and liver, in the metabolic-limb
system, and in part, also, in the rhythmic system. The
organization of limbs and metabolism is added for the first
time, from outside. The human individuality (who is eternal)
may only enter in this when the gate of death has been passed
and when the physical, material part of it has fallen away.
It is only the forces of the lung and the liver and other
organs that pass through the gate of death. Thus, during
earthly life, harm arises when the individuality enters into
certain organs into which it ought not to enter. Therefore
when we are faced with certain conditions of illness we have
only to say to ourselves: Here the individuality from the
previous earthly life is working on the organ which now ought
only to be influenced by the present earthly life. The proper
separation is not there. In the sick human being we see the
individuality working over from previous earthly lives. This
individuality which ought only to live itself out in the
realm of the moral, in the realm of destiny, which ought to
remain in what the human being does and experiences and ought
not to touch the organization in the most earthly part of the
human being — this individuality is working partly in
the metabolic-limb system, partly in the rhythmic system,
partly in the nerve and sense system because the boundary
line has become faulty.

Our attitude
to the human being is influenced by the fact that we know: In
the diseased lung the individuality of the human being is
working. When one looks at someone suffering from pulmonary
tuberculosis one feels a deep and true sympathy, realizing
that the materialism of our time is diverting him into the
outer world and that his karma, which ought to live itself
out in the moral sphere, in destiny, is, on account of our
present spiritual life, thrusting him back into his own
bodily nature. The individuality, instead of passing over
into the realm of the moral, retreats suddenly, becomes
organic, seizes hold of the lungs. The lungs are that part of
the metabolic-limb system which is turned inwards, whereas
the general direction of this system is outwards. Thus, the
individuality, working over from earlier incarnations, takes
hold directly of the corporeality.

These things
are not so important as theories, but they lead one into the
whole mood and attitude which generates the will-to-healing
and then finds a real connection with man's need for healing.
In our modern materialistic culture there is a sharp division
between the one who heals and the one who needs healing. They
do not get near to each other. There must arise a feeling for
the eternal in the human being and out of this feeling there
will develop the right relationship between the healer and
the one who is to be healed. We realize then that we must
always individualize in our treatment, for every human being
has his own karma. In all healing measures we must
individualize.

These things
must work upon our hearts. They become esoteric when we allow
them to work upon us. A document like the Luke Gospel
contains the whole mood that we need in order to develop this
feeling. Originally there actually were four faculties, a
“Luke faculty” among them, but no trace of it
exists today because our medicine is so strongly imbued with
Arabism. Medicine will be Christianized when once again we
reach the cosmic truths. The physician, too, must be
conscious of his position in connection with these cosmic
truths.

All this will
indicate to you how strongly the forces of the moon influence
the human form. When the moon forces in the human form work
too irregularly we must realize that we heal by getting rid
of this irregularity in the form and this can be done if we
treat the patient in such a way that cosmic consciousness can
find its place. But then, you see, the other side has to be
understood. You have to look at something from outside. You
cannot look at the eye from outside. The forces which enable
us to look at things from outside give us our clear concepts,
seeing to it that these clear concepts do not at once become
abstraction but that our heart thinks with them. Our concepts
must not be confused, but the heart must not be excluded from
our abstract thinking. We must function as the whole human
being; the heart must always think as well. We must not
merely think abstractly about the world but realize that when
we send out our thoughts the heart must be there as well. We
must understand these forces of the heart which entwine
themselves around the thoughts; we must understand once again
how to use the staff of Mercury. And this is only possible if
we pass over from the moon to Mercury. In connection with the
general cultural life, that is what I meant in the lectures
dealing with Raphael, for Raphael is the Christian Mercury.
If you permeate yourselves with this kind of consciousness
you will get the right feeling for your tasks when, as young
people today, you enter into medicine.

Everywhere in
the world there is cropping up the opposite of what ought to
happen. It has appeared in a dreadful form recently in the
domain of medicine. Forgive me for referring here to an
everyday matter, but it is an example of how this opposite
tendency is working. I refer to the principle of health
insurance. It is the factor of the physician who is excluded
here. In Germany there is art expression which conveys the
exclusion of the human element in the physician. In truth, it
is the physician who heals — not the products of
medical science. But this expression suggests that medical
science is something that floats around without the human
being. The human being does not come into the picture. A
rebuff is thereby given to karma. For karma does not work in
such a way that it brings two human beings together blindly.
Something of karma comes to light in the free choice of one's
physician. But in the purely Ahrimanic character of health
insurance arrangements, karma is put completely on one side
and the human being is exposed to the Ahrimanic powers who
fight against karma. When we come together again I will tell
you how the Ahrimanic powers are setting out to nullify the
karma of man so that they may attain their goal. This element
is playing a direct part in such institutions as that of
health insurance where individuals cannot always choose their
own physician. I believe the expression ‘healing
trade’ actually occurs in the law about health
insurance. This shows the whole attitude that exists about
health insurance and the conception of medicine as a trade.
An illness of civilization is emerging symptomatically in our
times — an illness that is making its appearance in
many other domains, too, showing how urgently the physician's
help is needed for its curing. But just where the physician
himself is most acutely exposed to this illness of
civilization, his real work is completely paralyzed. There is
a terrible factor in such things as health insurance. Of
course, it has its good side just as other things which crop
up in the world to tempt and mislead. They seem plausible and
are not displeasing. When the devil appears he always assumes
the form of an angel. Anyone who sees the devil as such, in a
vision, may be sure that it is not really the devil, for he
always appears in angelic form. If the physician himself is
exposed to an illness of civilization in its sharpest form,
our culture cannot help becoming diseased. Therefore you must
watch where your karma places you so that you do not work
merely in the sphere of medicine regarded as a trade but in
the sphere that is concerned with illness of the social
organism.

In this
direction, please formulate your questions. We will then meet
once more tomorrow. I have heard you also have a certain need
to hear how you can integrate yourselves into the general
Youth Movement. We will still be able to supplement what I
have said today but what I did bring today I wanted to bring
because I thought that it could be necessary for you to know
it and work with it.